Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Since I've been rather busy the past 3 months, I keep looking for and finding wonderful, easy recipes. This salmon recipe from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grilled-salmon-i/detail.aspx) is another example. I've made it three times and have been delighted with the results each time. I use a cast iron grill pan instead of a grill.

Ingredients

- 1 & 1/2 pounds of salmon (This is easy to adjust. I used 1 pound this evening. You'll just end up with extra marinade - or you can adjust the amount of marinade you make.)- lemon pepper to taste- garlic powder to taste- salt to taste- 1/3 cup soy sauce- 1/3 cup brown sugar- 1/3 cup water- 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions

1. Season salmon fillets with lemon pepper, garlic powder, salt.2. In a small bowl, stir together soy sauce, brown sugar, water, and vegetable oil until sugar is dissolved. Place fish in a large, resealable plastic bag with the soy sauce mixture, seal, and turn to coat. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.3. Preheat grill for medium heat.4. Lightly oil grill plate. Place salmon on the preheated grill, and discard marinade. Cook salmon for 6 to 8 minutes per side, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

I decided to have porterhouse steak as the main course for our dinner tonight. I happened to be on sale at Publix for a savings of $4 per pound. I bought a 1.4 pound beauty for my wife and I to share. I've only cooked a few steaks in my short cooking career, and none of them were terrific until tonight. I searched YouTube for an instructional video. I found one that I liked by Chef Phil Anderson, the Executive Chef of Harris Teeter Supermarkets at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAdqrDqkYgA. I only made one slight change based on another video that I saw.

The process was very easy and successful.

- Bring the steak to room temperature- Rub lots of salt and pepper into each side. The one change I made was to use freshly cracked black peppercorns instead of already ground pepper.- Massage canola oil into each side of the steak.- Heat the oven to 300 degrees.- Heat cast iron pan as hot as possible on the stove. Do not place any oil in the pan.- Place the steak in the pan and cook for 3 minutes on each side. Only turn the steak once, and use tongs, not a fork, to turn the steak.- Place the pan and steak in the oven. To cook the steak rare, cook for 2 minutes. Medium rare - for 4 minutes, and medium for 6 minutes.- Remove the steak and let it sit for 4-5 minutes before serving.

My wife and I really enjoy the wines of the Langhe and Roero, and also had a wonderful visit to the area with friends. Consequently, I decided to do some research on the area and present wines of the Langhe and Roero to members of our wine club. I would like to have included the wines of the Monferrato, but that would have been too much for one evening.

The wines we tasted were accompanied by home baked bread and by the following tasty cheeses: taleggio, fontina fontal, gorgonzola, montegrappa, and brie. It might have been nice to include other cheeses from the area, but they are not available here.Below are the PowerPoint slides if used for my presentation. I created some of the slides myself, used some images from the internet, and used copies of two postcards from our trip to the area. Whenever I used internet images, I gave credit to the appropriate site.

One particularly valuable resource I used was the web pages of the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo Barbaresco Alba Langhe e Roero (Consortium for Guarantee Barolo, Barbaresco, Alba, Langhe, and Roero - an organization dedicated to overseeing and promoting the wines of the Langhe and Roero http://www.langhevini.it/welcome_eng.lasso- ).

(The Director of the consortium advised me that the Consortium will host a 3-day promotion event for the Langhe and Roero wines. The event will take place May 5-7 in the Langhe and Roero and includes visits to wineries and vineyards. It is for wine professionals.)

I am also grateful for the assistance I received from a representative of the Michele Chiarlo winery.